| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 生物科學系研究所 === 95 === Inflammatory response in the airway may lead to asthma. Asthma may develop during the childhood in some asthmatic patients. Both environmental and genetic factors may influence the onset and progress of asthma. It is well-known that there may be complex neural innervation and reflex mechanisms between trachea and esophagus. Intraesophgeal infusion of 1N HCl could lead to tracheal inflammation by activating neural reflex pathway and cause tachykinin-like substance to release. In this study, we first sensitized rats with 1ml of OVA-Al［OH］3 mixture containing 200μg OVA via intraperitoneal injection on days 1, 2, 3 and 11, then perform intraesophageal infusion of ovalbumin to see whether stimulation of esophagus in sensitized rat model could involve inflammatory response in the lower airways. Animals were perfused with saline and fixative at various time points and the esophagus and airway tissues were processed for the subsequent analysis. We observed the extent of plasma leakage and migration of leukocytes in the lower airway. India ink was used to label the leaky blood vessels.The magnitude of plasma leakage was expressed by the area density of India ink-labeled blood vessels. The results showed that the intraesophageal infusion of ovalbumin 75 mg/kg caused an increase in plasma leakage in the lower airways. The plasma leakage peaked at 30 min, the area density of plasma leakage in trachea was 22.43 ± 3.34％; and 20.57 ± 4.91％ in right bronchus; 18.47 ± 5.03％ in left bronchus and 27.85 ± 2.71％ in epiglottis. The extent of leakage gradually diminished 3 hours after ovalbumin infusion. However, a second increased plasma leakage peaked at about 4 hours of ovalbumin infusion. Tissue sections clearly showed degranulation of mast cells in OVA infusion group. Experimental data showed that pretreatment with either bilateral vagotomy, or mepyramine, the histamine H1 receptor antagonist, significantly inhibited the inflammatory response in the lower airways induced by intraesophageal infusion of OVA. In conclusion, there were clearly two phases, early and late phase responses, in inflammatory response in OVA-sensitized rats receiving intra-esophageal OVA challenge. The underlying mechanisms may involve vagal C-fibers and histamine H1 receptors.
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